The Zune music player is probably not a topic on many people's radar, but given the Zune-specific origins of this site, here's a short double-header of music news:

My Dear John Letter from MSN Music
The shoe drops: MS officially tells its PlaysForSure customers to get bent.

Zune Sales Still In the Toilet
Well, not much need to explain that article's premise, is there.

You know, Zune probably isn't an awful product in terms of, say, falling apart or blowing up or just plain dying after a month... so, what is it that makes it so danged unpalatable? Like Vista, it just has this taint that goes beyond actual product flaws. All jokes and snark aside, it's truly a fascinating phenomenon to see.

Sweet mother of Jebus. This is apparently what it takes to get the beleagured Vista sales team energized about meeting quota.

In their defense, "Why not create a decent product instead of wasting time on cheesy videos?" isn't a totally apt criticism, as the sales team doesn't create the product; they can only try to flog what's been extruded from the product dev section.

One thing in life I would not want to be is a Vista sales manager, and this video just made that go double.

Holy bejesus. I thought my Anything but Speechless: 100 Things People Are Really Saying About Windows Vista was a pretty thorough record of Vista's failure. This Slashdot page goes me one better. It's got plenty of info and links, which I've got too, but also puts it all into a chronological ordering. Like watching train wreck footage, frame by painful frame.

Vista Failure Log

I doff my cap to my better. Well done, sir(s)!

Okay, so Apple won some survey of the world's leading brands. Good for them.
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSL2850164020080331?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

I was confused only by this: "At the other end of the spectrum, Microsoft had "gone from innovative and bold to stodgy and follower," said another unnamed reader."

"Gone from innovative and bold to stodgy and follower"? I resent that mischaracterization of Microsoft! I demand an explanation:

When was Microsoft ever innovative and bold? It's a serious question.

"Why Vista? Good Question." That's the premise of an eWEEK survey to enterprises. And the answer is... buried in a horrible "slideshow" format forcing would-be readers to wade through flickering screen after screen, for what turns out to be barely a large paragraph's worth of info.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Vista/Why-Vista-Good-Question/

For you, fair readers, I bring the slides' text in its entirety. Here it is:
Read more »

Allow me to link to a funny post here, as I have nothing funny to say myself. An excerpt:

Here's proof that Apple is already capturing mindshare in the market. These are things you never hear:

Read more »